Canadian Bus Driver Arrested For Criticizing Homosexuality, Faces Up To 2 Years In Prison

Last week a nationwide criminal arrest warrant was put out on a 51-year-old Canadian named Bill Whatcott. Whatcott was in the Canadian oil sands at the time, driving a bus to support his family. It was a rough job—temporary work in remote, far-north Canada—but the only employment he could find just then to support his family of four.

Whatcott was wanted in Toronto to be charged with “Wilful Promotion of Hatred against an identifiable group, namely the gay community.” The basis for this charge? In 2016 Whatcott had distributed “safe sex” pamphlets at a gay pride parade.

These pamphlets stated homosexuality is associated with sexually transmitted diseases, including HPV of the rectum, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says is true. The pamphlets also made negative comments about the Liberal party, and stated accusations and facts about several left-wing politicians accused or convicted of various sexual crimes.

For instance, the pamphlets noted that Toronto’s former deputy education minister, who pled guilty to making and distributing child pornography in 2015, had a hand in designing Ontario’s “perverted sex education curriculum.” Government documents show he at the very least oversaw that curriculum’s design, although whether it is “perverted” may be open to debate.

The pamphlets also included Christian statements indicating that unrepentant support for homosexual acts will lead to “eternal peril” but repentance to “the free gift of eternal life.” The pamphlets were illustrated with graphic medical photos similar to those sometimes required on cigarette labels, which are, of course, shocking. They did not call on anyone to hate homosexuals, or advocate violence, or claim that all homosexuals are pedophiles.

Whatcott was arrested last week for distributing these pamphlets, and held until Monday afternoon of this week, when he was released on bail on the condition that he remove the offending fliers from his website immediately. Photocopies of the pamphlets could formerly be found here, but were taken down Tuesday. They have popped up (warning: graphic images) on American-based websites since then.

Handing Out Pamphlets Compares to Bank Robbery?

Whatcott has a long history of political activism, so is no stranger to Canadian hate speech laws. But the criminal charges, coming without warning nearly two full years after his alleged “hate speech” and enforced by a nationwide arrest warrant, left him “shocked.”

“When they’re looking for you in three provinces, you’re pretty much, you know, bank robbery or murder…. So I knew it was serious,” Whatcott said. Whatcott called “a Christian lawyer friend” from his job site in northern Alberta. “When Dr. Lugosi told me it was the parade, I was shocked. I thought, ‘This is insane.’ But I also figured the best thing to do was to turn myself in.”

Whatcott drove south to Calgary where he turned himself into the police last Friday. While he was in custody, he says, “It might have been on purpose, because it didn’t happen, like—some inmates did go half a day without food—but they actually made me go a full 24 hours” without eating.

Whatcott says he was also denied medical treatment during his stay. “I had a leg infection, and it was bad enough that I was brought to the hospital, but they simply refused to fill the prescriptions. So for four days I had no medications,” Whatcott stated Tuesday morning. “The infection was actually going up my leg. I was a little concerned it was gonna go systemic.”

Whatcott’s suspicions that he was singled out for rough treatment may have been unduly stoked by a Calgary police officer who Whatcott says took pains to inform his nurses that Whatcott was a dangerous “hate criminal” and that they ought to “be careful around [him].”

The law under which Whatcott has been charged is considered an “indictable offense” punishable by imprisonment for up to two years and forfeitures. Whatcott expects to return to Toronto court on July 23 to set a trial date.

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